course description

Welcome to Open Relativity. An introduction to Einstein's Theory of Relativity using interactive animations. The subjects covered in the course are listed in the contents menu. This site is still developing and new material will be added over time.

This online course compliments lectures I deliver at Sydney Observatory that present relativity using 3D interactive animations. I also present Relativity online to HSC students which can be booked using my email in the header.
This site reproduces much of the material presented in the courses. The objective of the course is to convey an understanding of
relativity without the aid of mathematics.

Each animation is designed to demonstrate a particular principle of the theory. Some instructive license is used to help convey each principle. This is done, not to dilute the presentation of the theory, but to assist in demonstrating principles within the theory.

Guidance is given as to how to use the animations and things to observer while you interact with the each animation. I encourage you to spend time with each animation and experiment with the options available to you.

Throughout the website a little spacecraft icon will be your link to the animations.

news

NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) and the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton, have combined their X-ray capabilities to measure the rotation rate of a distant black hole.

The black hole is in the centre of a galaxy called NGC 1365. The speed at the surface of the black hole is a significant fraction of the speed of light.